It was a gloomy night. The breeze that had swept away the clouds blew them back again. At first they came in fleecy strands of white. The moon wiped them off its face. Then they came in large billows, blotted out the moonlight and turned the sky a dull gray. The moon fought its way through, and occasionally, patches of the plain sparkled like silver. Later, clouds came in monstrous black formations and spread across the sky. Then, without any lightning or thunder, it began to rain.

A group of Sikh peasants gathered together in the house of the lambardar. They sat in a circle around a hurricane lantern—some on a charpoy, others on the floor. Meet Singh was amongst them.

For a long time nobody said anything apart from repeating, ‘God is punishing us for our sins.’

‘Yes, God is punishing us for our sins.’

‘There is a lot of zulum in Pakistan.’

‘That is because He wants to punish us for our sins. Bad acts yield a bitter harvest.’

Then one of the younger men spoke. ‘What have we done to deserve this? We have looked upon the Muslims as our brothers and sisters. Why should they send somebody to spy on us?’

‘You mean Iqbal?’ Meet Singh said. ‘I had quite a long conversation with him. He had an iron bangle on his wrist like all of us Sikhs and told me that his mother had wanted him to wear it, so he wore it. He is a shaven Sikh. He does not smoke. And he came the day after the moneylender’s murder.’

‘Bhai, you get taken in easily,’ replied the same youth. ‘Does it hurt a Mussulman to wear an iron bangle or not smoke for a day—particularly if he has some important work to do?’

‘I may be a simple bhai,’ protested Meet Singh warmly, ‘but I know as well as you that the babu had nothing to do with the murder; he would not have been in the village afterwards if he had. That any fathead would understand.’

The youth felt a little abashed.

‘Besides that,’ continued Meet Singh more confidently, ‘they had already arrested Malli for the dacoity . . . ’

‘How do you know what they had arrested Malli for?’ interrupted the youth triumphantly.

‘Yes, how do you know what the police know? They have released Malli. Have you ever known them to release murderers without a trial and acquittal?’ asked some others.

‘Bhai, you always talk without reason.’

‘Accha, if you are the ones with all the reason, tell me who threw the packet of bangles into Jugga’s house.’

‘How should we know?’ answered a chorus.

‘I will tell you. It was Jugga’s enemy Malli. You all know they had fallen out. Who else would dare insult Jugga except he?’

No one answered the question. Meet Singh went on aggressively to drive his point home. ‘And all this about Sultana, Sultana! What has that to do with the dacoity?’